Bias-cut justice: the legal pursuits of Isolde Pantulf, Hawise, Countess of Aumale, and Nicholaa de la Haye c. 1180-1216

Abstract

Isolde Pantulf, Hawise, countess of Aumale, and Nicholaa de la Haye were contemporaries navigating the justice system in thirteenth-century England primarily under the reign of King John. The following study traces key moments in their lives which allowed them the access to purchase rights, defend castles with deadly force, and pay for their personal freedoms. This thesis hence outlines tactics available to well-financed women who sought to control their own social, political, and financial affairs within the confines of English Common Law in the thirteenth century. Each chapter considers a discrete thematic problem such as marriage, wardship, and free widowhood and compares how each woman approached and either succeeded in or fell short of obtaining a right or privilege through the court system. Ultimately, the thesis seeks to bolster the scholarship pertaining to women participating in social, political, and legal disputes by placing them in conversation. The thesis also suggests that women were not? inherently barred from obtaining rights and privileges through legal pursuit so long as they could pay. Yet, in the pursuit of justice, each woman paid radically different fees for the same right suggesting that access to justice may have been available but certainly was unfixed and unequal.